1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to an improved crimping method and apparatus and more particularly to an improved method and apparatus for providing a crimped skirt and contact assembly.
2. Summary of the Prior Art
Receptacle contacts are often formed with longitudinally extending spring fingers or legs for receiving a male or pin contact therebetween. The spring fingers are subject to a distorting force arising for example from misalignment with a pin or male contact or improper tolerances or from engagement with a foreign or sharp object, and the contact may become distorted or useless.
Stamped contact forms which are rolled into a female or receptacle contact to provide the spring fingers or legs have considerable economic attraction. The contact is split longitudinally and is rather fragile, however. It therefore is important to provide the receptacle contact with some means of protection and this is usually a tubular skirt or hood, which overlaps the contact legs and has a lip at one end to both protect the receptacle contact leg ends and to steer or guide the male pin contact into the proper engagement with the female contact, and prevent insertion of an oversize member.
In order to fix the skirt on a female or receptacle contact, the hood is deformed at the end opposite the lip into a reduced outer diameter portion or recess of the receptacle contact. The hood may be fixed to the contact in conventional crimping apparatus, but such apparatus usually requires a complicated arrangement of levers and jaws and a stamped contact cannot be conveniently handled on the web from which it is formed since the web is fragile and the contacts are closely spaced. Therefore practically in order to secure a hood to a female contact, the female contact is first formed in a split bar or rod and the hood is deformed adjacent one end into the recess by spinning. This renders the process together with the contact and hood assembly relatively expensive.